


I'll let you haunt me

by oathkeeping



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Hauntings, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oathkeeping/pseuds/oathkeeping
Summary: Cassian rents out a flat. As it turns out, the owner has never left.Written for day 3 of the 13 days of sniperpilot halloween challenge.





	I'll let you haunt me

The flat is nice -- the owner, well, he’s never met the man, but the family had been adamant that the furnishings stay as they were -- and it’s not bad. Whoever had lived here had _decent_ enough taste.

If not a little disorganized.

But that’s fine by Cassian, a night nurse who keeps odd hours and sleeps most of the day, anyways.

Something was always weird about the place, though. Sometimes things would be left out of place, and he could convince himself then, that perhaps he was just tired or forgetful and oh he meant to leave that book on the other side of the room when he’d been reading it in bed --

It’s not until he’s about to get ready for bed one night -- day do things get really weird.

“What are you doing in my bed??” Cassian’s eyes shoot open, and he’s sitting up, scrambling for something as a man grabs the blankets. He’s cute, brown skin, dark eyes and strands of hair falling out of it’s tie into his face.

He’d be cuter, if he weren’t interrupting Cassian’s sleep. “Look -- there must be some mistake. I’m renting this flat --”

But he doesn’t get any further, before the man is storming out of the room. “Yeah? From who? Did my sister put this up as some kind of prank...” his voice trails off and Cassian counts to five, before he’s jumping out of bed, following him, prepared to deal with him.

There’s no sign of him.

\--

He doesn’t see the man for a few days. Part of him wonders if it’s all the stress of his job, intense hours, and poor diet catching up to him. He’s prepared to shake it off, forget it happened. Cassian curls up on the front room chair on one of his rare days off, Kaytu the cat is sitting on his lap sleeping peacefully when:

“Okay, the joke has gone far enough. Are you one of Jyn’s friends?” It’s the man again. The sleeping cat on his lap is suddenly awake and snarling, claws digging into Cassian’s leg. “Ow, Kay stop -- look, Jyn did set this up, but it’s not a prank.” He’s annoyed now. “She said the owner would not be back for some time, and they couldn’t sell--”

“I’m right here. I’ve been here. I don’t know what she’s doing, or thinking. I’m calling her right now.” There’s a headache building behind Cassian’s eyes, and his leg is bleeding from the cat’s claws that are still digging into him. (”Kay, stop”)

He blinks, and the man is gone. Okay. He’s going crazy.

\--

The man, he learns, has a name. It’s Bodhi Rook.

\--

He sees Bodhi, on several more occasions. These occasions are less of being yelled at. Cassian starts to talk to Bodhi, get to know him. He knows he has a sister named Jyn -- half sister, their father is a scientist, she’s a barista at the shop he owns with her.

He’s friendly, and funny and Cassian isn’t sure he’s not a figment of his imagination, but that’s fine, because it’s more companionship than he’s had in years (and what does it say about him, that his newest friend probably doesn’t exist because there’s _no way_ he’s a ghost).

\--

The next time he sees Bodhi, it isn’t in the apartment. He’s doing some rounds, covering for another nurse when he steps into the hospital room in the ICU. Balloons are deflating around the bed, cards wishing a speedy recovery sit next to a vase of flowers. New, the visitor must have just left them. He picks up the chart, flipping over the details -- _car accident, comatose,_ and his eyes flick up to the figure in the bed.

It’s the same figure. Skin slightly greyed out, hair pulled back, out of his face -- surrounded by beeping machines and monitors that confirm the stats he’s reading.

The clipboard falls from his hands.

\--

“I remember now.” Bodhi says sadly, curled on the sofa, opposite Cassian. “The accident.” Kay seems to have calmed down around him, despite knowing that he’s obviously not meant to be here, it’s that or he’s enjoying those neck scratches so much he doesn’t care (the later, likely).

“You said I’m in a coma? I mean... how am I here, if I’m not actually dead?” Bodhi frowns, and Cassian shrugs. “I’m not sure. I don’t know how this works any more than you do, sorry.”

 _Sigh_.

“Do you think I’ll wake up?” Bodhi asks and Cassian looks up into his face, he can read hope there, but not enough. He thinks Bodhi is aware as much as he is. But it still hurts to say it. He wants to go over there and take that sorrow off his face, hold him, reassure him that he’ll wake up.

He’s been in the medical practice for a long time, though. “I ... I’m sorry Bodhi. I don’t think you will.”

“So I’m stuck like this, until I either wake up or die, is what you’re saying.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but... that is what it would seem like.”

Neither of them speak much after that, and eventually -- when Cassian looks up, he finds the cat looking disgruntled at the current lack of petting as Bodhi is gone.

\--

Cassian dreams of lips on his, rough hands, carding through his hair, and a voice moaning his name. He wakes up with Bodhi’s name in his mouth and scrubs a hand over his face, cursing himself for falling in love with a ghost.

\--

He’s talking to Bodhi one day, when this look just crosses the other man’s face. A surprised “oh”, and he looks to Cassian, before smiling. “I think I’ve gotta go. But I think we’ll see each other again...hopefully not soon”

And he’s gone, like he’s never been there. Something constricts in his chest, painful and aching at the lack of his friend...

He curls into the pillow where Bodhi had been, there’s no scent or warmth, there wouldn’t be.

\--

Bodhi was right, though. Cassian took a month off, went to visit his family. Ready to come back and take up where he left off. Feeling refreshed, he starts to socialize with his coworkers, go out, enjoy life.

He wants to live his life, to the best he can. For Bodhi.

Years pass.

These things... they’re always unexpected. One minute you’re fine, the next... the next you’ve choked to death on a meatball at a fancy resteraunt.

That’s not how Cassian dies, thank you very much. No. It’s a car accident, and it’s so sudden.

When he wakes up again, he’s back in his flat -- the same one he’d rented those years again and there’s a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at him, hand outstretched. He looks exactly the same as Cassian remembers, and he can't see himself -- but if he had to guess, he'd look like he did when they met.

“Bodhi...”

“I'm here to take you to where you're supposed to be. Are you ready?” A smile spreads across his face as he takes the offered hand and together, they walk towards the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was supposed to have a much cheesier, romantic comedy style ending. I got the idea from a Reese Witherspoon movie, after all. But I went with more of a bittersweet because... I don't know. After two re-writes, I think I'm finally happy with it.


End file.
